


Optimist

by flugantamuso



Category: Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 03:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flugantamuso/pseuds/flugantamuso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He started leaving little things on her desk, leaves and marbles and candy, and once a millipede.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Optimist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [larah33](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=larah33).



Monday morning wasn't what anyone expected. For one thing, the fire in the chemistry lab meant that everyone had to mill around outside for a while in the cold, and no one noticed that three students edged a bit closer to each other than was expected. The fact that Bender had his tongue down Claire's throat might have had something to do with that. There was whistling and clapping, and Claire's friends did a lot of blushing.

Andrew caught Allison's eye and grinned. She grinned back, and they both moved a little closer to Brian, who was between them. He didn't seem to mind.

ooo

Publicly, at least, everyone liked the idea of Bender and Claire. His friends congratulated him on nabbing the prom queen, and her friends liked the idea of a bad boy, though none of them went out of their way to talk to him. Then Claire started arriving at school with a strained look in her eyes. There were rumors that her mother had left the country. Bender finally gave in and ate sushi at lunch for the first and last time. He was in the bathroom throwing up when Brian found him.

"It's not your fault," he said, carefully edging his feet out of range. Bender wasn't entirely safe even when he wasn't hacking up the contents of his stomach.

Bender sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth with careful precision. "I didn't ask for your opinion, squirt."

Brian refused to be deterred. "I'm giving it to you anyway."

Bender very obviously bit back what he had been about to say and hauled himself to his feet. He slung an arm around Brian's neck (not an entirely reassuring maneuvre, from Brian's point of view), and walked them out. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" said Brian, semi-nervously.

"To my locker."

Brian brightened. Bender's locker was the home of exciting, and usually illegal things that he had learned to appreciate.

ooo

Brian had World History with Allison, and he'd taken to sitting in the back next to her. He'd tried giving her a note once, but she just made a snowflake pattern with the paper. He would have been discouraged, but this was Alison, so he wasn't. He wasn't the type to whisper during class, and he wasn't brave enough to approach her in the halls, Claire had been right about that, so he started leaving little things on her desk, leaves and marbles and candy, and once a millipede.

After a few weeks Claire cornered him in the halls. He swallowed and tried to sidle away, but her hand shot out and grabbed his arm. He froze, years of social conditioning preventing him from pulling away from a girl. People were _looking_ at them.

He started to sweat. "Um. Hello, Claire."

"What do you think you're doing, Brian?"

He blinked. "What?"

She rolled her eyes and said slowly, "What do you think you're doing with Allison?"

People were starting to whisper. He looked around and swallowed nervously. Clair saw where he was looking and blushed slightly, but she still looked determined. She tucked her arm under his and turned. "Walk with me."

They went down the hall and onto the soccer field. People watched them silently. Claire's arm clenched his tightly, and she looked straight ahead. Finally she slowed and said, looking at him sidelong, "So, do you like her?"

He boggled at the idea, not necessarily that he would like Allison in that way, but that it would occur to Claire that he might. "No. Where did you get an idea like that?"

"Well, you've been giving her things, and sometimes that's what boys do when they like girls."

"Sometimes that's what _people_ do when they like other _people_, Claire." Then his brain caught up with him and he said, "Wait, you've been talking to Allison?" He looked at her thoughtfully. "You've really changed, you know that?"

She turned to him fully and smiled. "I hope that's a good thing."

"It is." He tried to think of something else to say, but she spoke first.

"So why the gifts?"

"Gifts?"

"The candy, and," she moved her hand in a negligent waving motion, "other stuff."

Brian smiled. He'd heard about Claire's reaction to that spider in the locker room the other day. He definitely wouldn't be doing himself any favors by putting insects on Iher/I desk. His smile faded when he thought about her question. "I'm just trying to be nice," he answered honestly.

She said slowly, "People might take it the wrong way, Brian."

"Has Allison taken it the wrong way?" He really couldn't imagine that, but perhaps Claire knew Allison better than he did. After all, Claire had talked to her, and they were both girls, and what did he know about girls? Apparently not much.

He had been trying. He wasn't brave like Claire was turning out to be, and he had more to lose than Bender did. He was trying to keep the connection that they'd made that Saturday. It was easier with Bender, because even if he didn't understand him, Bender usually understood Brian, and apparently it was easier with Claire, but that was beause of her, not him. He'd seen a chance with Allison, because they shared a class together, a chance to make a friend, or was it keep a friend? Saturday had connected them, but he wasn't sure that they were friends.

"No, Allison hasn't taken it that way." Claire sounded reluctant.

"Then what does it matter?" He pulled his arm away and put his hands in his pockets. "You're talking to me while half the school watches, so what does it matter what they think of me and Allison?"

"It's not what Ithey/I think, it's what Ihe/I thinks."

And abruptly he understood.

Andrew had been like a ghost the last few weeks, standing behind Claire in choir, watching Brian from classroom doorways, brushing Bender's arm in the hallways, and floating silently behind Allison wherever she went.

It hadn't occurred to Brian that he could mess something up without even trying. He felt his throat close up and looked at the ground.

"It's not-" she stopped. "We can fix it, you know."

Brian looked at the brown winter grass and thought that she was wrong. None of them were really fixable. But if she was making the effort, then so could he. "How are things going with Bender?"

"They're ok." She was frowning. "Sometimes I think that we're only together because nobody has pulled us apart yet, but we're ok." She hesitated, then added, "He flinches sometimes when I touch him, and he's got these marks on his arms..." she trailed off and looked in the distance, hugging her arms to her chest. "I never ask him about them."

_Unfixable_, thought Brian, but he said anyway, "Maybe you should."

"Maybe," she said softly, and then her attention snapped back to him. "Maybe you should talk to Allison, instead of leaving her things." Her mouth turned up in a forced smile. After all, you've talked to me, how much scarier can it be to talk to her?"

She had no idea. Claire, even this new, strange Claire, was predictable. Allison...you never knew what Allison would do. But he smiled anyway and said a little hesitantly, "alright."

She smiled at him again, a real smile, a relieved smile, and said, "Come to lunch with me."

"With you?"

"With us."

"Only if you promise not to make me eat sushi."

ooo

I like to think that Claire and Bender stay together, that Bender stops showing up to school with marks on his arms, that Brian talks to Allison and Andrew stops avoiding everyone. That they all eat lunch in the cafeteria together. I like to think that they can fix themselves, if not each other.


End file.
